Prevalence and Clinico-Biological Characteristics of Viral Hepatitis B and C in Chronic Hemodialysis Patients at the National Hospital Center of Nouakchott-Mauritania

Introduction: Chronic renal insufficiency is a common pathology both nationally and worldwide, infections with hepatitis B and C viruses are the most common infectious complication in chronic hemodialysis patients. Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of hepatitis B and C in chronic hemodialysis patients at the National Hospital Center of Nouakchott and to identify the risk factors for these infections as well as their clinical and biological complications in this population Material and Methods: This is a prospective study carried out at the nephrology-hemodialysis department of the National Hospital of Nouakchott over a period of one year from 1st, 2016 to December 31st, 2016 Demographic, clinical, epidemiological, and biological data were collected using a pre-established survey form The search for HBsAg was done by the ELISA technique and the detection of anti-HCV antibodies was done by the CMIA technique (Abbott®), the HCV RNA was searched for by real-time PCR (Abbott) Results The average age of our patients was 52 years old with a female predominance The prevalence of hepatitis B was 24.27% and that of hepatitis C was 5.82%, 1.92% of patients were coinfected with HBV and HCV The duration of dialysis and the number of transfusions were the main risk factors for catching these infections. Conclusion the risk factors found in our study were comparable to the literature; the high prevalence of hepatitis B in our series could be linked to its high prevalence in the general population but also to a nosocomial infection.